The Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) dropped four of their ministers, all of them belonging to Vidarbha region, which included three cabinet ministers, as Ashok Chavan took the oath of office as the 15th chief minister of Maharashtra.
It may be recalled that earlier former Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and deputy chief minister and Home Minister RR Patil were asked to resign from their posts by the high commands of the Congress and NCP, respectively, following a public outcry on the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai.
After grappling in the dark for four days on who should be the next chief minister and for three more days on who should be included or excluded, Congress was able to finalise the list of 18 members for cabinet berths in Maharashtra government.
According to the power sharing agreement between Congress and NCP, while Congress can have 22 ministerial berths, NCP will have 24 berths in the state cabinet.
However, it seems Congress kept three berths vacant when Vilasrao Deshmukh was chief minister as it was never able to make up its mind to whom these three berths should go. This time also the story seems to be no different as out of its quota of 22, Congress managed to find suitable candidates for only 18 berths.
NCP's Chhagan Bhujbal was sworn in as the deputy chief minister of the state for the second time after a gap of five years. Bhujbal had to step down as deputy chief minister and home minister of the state in 2003 in the wake of his alleged involvement in giving protection to the multi-crore fake stamp scam mastermind Abdul Karim Telgi. However, he joined the cabinet after the 2004 elections as the public works minister as he was given a clean cheat by the investigating agencies. But Bhujbal was sulking for last four years as he felt he was sidelined and not made deputy chief minister once again.
Those dropped from the cabinet include Minister for Education Vasant Puarke, Textile Minister Satish Chaturvedi (both from Congress) and Minister for Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) Anil Deshmukh (NCP) and Minister of State for Public Health Ranjit Kamble.
Former Minister for Tribal Development Sarupsingh Naik (Congress) and NCP's Nawab Malik who had to resign in the wake of corruption charges have been reinducted in the cabinet.
Three ministers of state during Vilasrao Deshmukh’s tenure were elevated to cabinet rank for their good performance —NCP's Rajendra Shingne and Rajesh Tope and Congress's Ravi Patil, who were handling revenue, urban development and public works departments, respectively.
Those who have been newly included in the cabinet are Madan Patil (Congress) who is a nephew of former state chief minister Vasantdada Patil and NCP's Ramesh Bung. Those who have been included as minister of state for the first time are Nitin Raut, Nasim Khan, Shobha Bacchav and Vijay Waddetiwar (all from Congress) and NCP's Suresh Warpudkar, Satish Patil and Nana Panchbuddhe (all from NCP).
As there were no women from Congress in the Deshmukh cabinet, Baccav has been included to make a point to women voters, believe political observers. And interestingly, staunch supporter of rebel Congress leader Narayan Rane, Waddetiwar has also found the place in the state cabinet.
